Warzone Firefight – the eighth and largest content release to-date, is available now in Halo 5: Guardians! Warzone Firefight includes three new maps, two new armors, the Halo 2 Beam rifle, customization options including HCS Pro League skins, Score Attack for campaign, a new Forge canvas, a new UNSC air vehicle, the hilarious new Warzone boss and of course, the Warzone Firefight PvE game mode.

As mentioned last week, in celebration of the launch of Warzone Firefight, Halo 5: Guardians will be available free to download for anyone with Xbox Live Gold starting today and running to July 5! This will also be a great chance to buy the game if you haven’t done so already – Halo 5: Guardians will be available 50 percent off in the Xbox Store!

If this is your first time jumping in to Halo 5: Guardians, fret not! Rolling out for a limited time with this release is the “Firefight REQ Reward” program, which grants all players a Gold REQ Pack upon signing in to Halo 5: Guardians. Gold REQ Packs contain a variety of permanent and one-time use items that can be used in Warzone and Arena game modes. You’ll get more Gold REQ Packs with additional wins in Warzone Firefight, unlocking up to a total of 10!

In addition, players can purchase a limited time “Spartan Recruit REQ Pack,” aimed to help new players jump in quickly to Warzone multiplayer. The Spartan Recruit REQ Pack will include the DMR loadout weapon, Magnum with Extended Mag loadout weapon, plus certifications and three extra REQs for the Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle and Scorpion. Learn more about the REQ System here.

Warzone Firefight will be the largest content release since launch for Halo 5: Guardians and we’ll have more content coming in the future. For all the latest info on Halo and Halo 5: Guardians, stay tuned to Halo Waypoint and Xbox Wire.

It’s time for Halo Nation to suit up, as the latest free content release for Halo 5: Guardians launches today. Ghosts of Meridian brings two new maps for Warzone and Arena – Skirmish at Darkstar and Tyrant respectively – new weapons and vehicles, new visual customizations, and more. Highlights include Tartarus’ Gavel, a Legendary gravity hammer that unleashes kinetic explosions with each swing, as well as Hannibal customizations for the Mantis and Scorpion.

In addition to the added content, Ghosts of Meridian will include a variety of game improvements based on fan feedback, including multiplayer updates and fixes, sandbox, weapon, and vehicle adjustments, improvements to REQ Station UI performance, a lengthy list of Forge additions and more.

As always, 343 Industries is committed to continuing to deliver free content for Halo 5: Guardians in the months ahead. We’ve seen special excitement around Warzone Firefight after a sneak peek during the Halo World Championship finals last month. But there is nothing like experiencing the action first-hand…

Warzone Firefight Beta Coming April 14-18

The biggest Halo cooperative experience in franchise history, Warzone Firefight, is coming later this summer, but today we’re excited to announce plans for a Warzone Firefight Beta – running from 10 a.m. PDT on Thursday, Apr. 14 until 10 a.m. PDT on Monday, Apr. 18. The beta will feature the Warzone map, Escape from A.R.C., with several additional maps coming with the full release later this summer. Up to eight players will fight together and utilize the Halo 5: Guardians REQ System to complete five rounds of increasingly difficult, dynamic objectives set against a timer to emerge victorious.

In celebration of the new features and content, a new promotional REQ pack will unleash the most powerful REQs in the system. Available for one week only (Thursday, Apr. 14 to Thursday, Apr. 21), the Mythic Warzone REQ Pack will contain ten Mythic single-use power weapon REQs and one Ultra Rare or Legendary weapon or vehicle certification, if available. For use in all Warzone modes, including Warzone Firefight, this pack will ensure players enter battle with the most powerful gear available.

Ghosts of Meridian will automatically download and install for all Halo 5: Guardian players, and full content details are available on Halo Waypoint.

Game Description: A mysterious and unstoppable force threatens the galaxy, the Master Chief is missing and his loyalty questioned. Experience the most dramatic Halo story to date in a 4-player cooperative epic that spans three worlds. Challenge friends and rivals in new multiplayer modes: Warzone, massive 24-player battles, and Arena, pure 4-vs-4 competitive combat.

A sample of the new content that fans can expect in the Cartographer’s Gift update includes:

Forge Mode – Forge has been rebuilt from the ground up for Halo 5: Guardians. Giving more power and control to the Forge community was the primary goal, and community feedback will continue to fuel the evolution of Forge.

New Weapons, Armor Sets and Assassinations – The classic M41 “SPNKr” Rocket Launcher, MARK IV [GEN 1] armor set and two new assassinations – “Nice Try” and “Oh Snap” – REQs have been added for you to collect for your arsenal.

New Warzone and Arena Maps – Four new maps – the Warzone map “The Battle of Noctus,” Arena map “Overgrowth,” and Big Team Battle maps “Antifreeze,” and “Entombed” – are now available in Halo 5: Guardians

Cartographer’s Gift will automatically download and install for all Halo 5: Guardian players. For more details about all the new content included in the Cartographer’s Gift update, please visit Halo Waypoint.

Halo 5: Guardians is out now and we hosted a huge global launch event to celebrate the occasion. If you tuned in and watched the entire show, then you saw a variety of content spanning seven hours leading up to (and past) the world-wide release. If you didn’t catch the show, or if you want to rewatch it in all of its glory, it is now available as Video On Demand. And if you’d prefer to watch the individual segments, you can do that too – I’ve linked them all below. Enjoy.

At long last, Halo 5: Guardians is almost here. And as its October 27 launch date barrels toward us like an oncoming Spartan Charge, we’ve prepped one of the biggest, baddest launch celebrations ever. At 6:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, October 26, we’ll be running our six-hour Halo 5: Live broadcast, culminating with Halo 5: Guardians’ North American launch at midnight.

Ahead of Monday, we wanted to preview details about two of our favorite segment.

We recently got a peek at the Halo 5: Guardians Writers’ Roundtable, an exclusive behind-the-scenes chat between the game’s creative team and Nathan Fillion, who voices Spartan Buck in Halo 5: Guardians (to say nothing of “Firefly,” “Castle,” and all of his other amazing credentials over the years).

Second, we’ll be debuting a special behind-the-scenes video on “Halo: The Fall of Reach,” the upcoming animated series based on Erik Nylund’s 2001 novel. “Halo: The Fall of Reach” unveils the origin of the Spartan-II program, Blue Team, and the soldier who would eventually become the Master Chief. In this making-of video, the Halo team discusses the making of this unique animated series, and its importance to the Halo saga.

Halo 5: Live will unite millions of Halo fans worldwide – allowing them to watch, comment, and virtually participate in a multitude of launch celebrations held in key international cities. No matter who you are or where you’re located, you can join in on the fun leading up to 2015’s biggest video game launch.

You can find an exhaustive list of what we’ve got planned in our initial Halo 5: Live announcement post. It’s almost here – and we’re just as excited as you are to finally dive into Halo 5: Guardians on Xbox One!

With the release of Halo 5: Guardians next week, gamers from around the world are about to discover the truth about The Master Chief and Spartan Locke. If you haven’t been keeping up with the HUNT the TRUTH feature, or maybe you want to listen to them all again, you can listen to each episode here or check out the official HUNT the TRUTH website.

HUNT the TRUTH is a fictional investigative audio series. In Season 1 hosted by Benjamin Giraud (Keegan-Michael Key), HUNT the TRUTH unfolds as Benjamin investigates the story behind the Master Chief, humanity’s greatest and most mysterious hero. As inconsistencies in the story emerge, Ben is faced with toeing the government line or cutting rank and breaking the conspiracy wide open. HUNT the TRUTH is presented by XBOX and 343 Industries, makers of HALO 5: Guardians.

With Spartan Companies in Halo 5: Guardians, you can now create your own group of legendary warriors and forge a new legacy in your Halo experience. Designed to unite players under a common banner, Spartan Companies takes team play to a whole new level as you rise up the ranks.

Make your Spartan Company stand out from the crowd with unique emblems, banners, colors, and more. Recruit up to 99 of your friends and fellow combatants to fill out your ranks and ready your company for battle in the Wargames.

For more information about Spartan Companies and Halo 5: Guardians, check out Halo Waypoint.